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by Liz Walter
Back in 2017, my colleague Kate Woodford wrote a couple of posts on ‘binomials’, which are pairs of words joined with ‘and’ or ‘or’, that are used together in a fixed order. Today I’m taking this one step further by looking at ‘trinomials’ or groups of three words always used in the same order.
Some common trinomials are completely literal and, while rather clichéd, can be used in any situation. Examples include tall, dark, and handsome; cool, calm, and collected (meaning very calm and able to control your feelings); good, bad, or indifferent and ready, willing, and able:
Her new boyfriend was tall, dark, and handsome.
He was always cool, calm, and collected, even under great pressure.
He didn’t really care whether his exam results were good, bad, or indifferent.
Prices should be set at a level that buyers are ready, willing, and able to pay.
However, trinomials are often used for emphasis. If you say you will beg, borrow, or steal something, you mean that you will do anything to get it. Similarly, if you have put blood, sweat, and tears into achieving something, you have used a huge amount of effort, and something that happens morning, noon, and night happens all the time:
See if you can beg, borrow, or steal a copy of his latest book.
We put three years of blood, sweat, and tears into making our business successful.
Planes were taking off morning, noon, and night.
If someone completely believes something that was intended to trick them, you could say that they fell for it hook, line, and sinker, while if you talk about moving something or buying something lock, stock, and barrel, you mean every single part of it:
She told him she was a model and he fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
We moved our entire company, lock, stock, and barrel, to India.
There are a couple of common trinomials connected with position. If something exists or happens here, there, and everywhere it exists or happens in many different places. Right, left, and centre (UK)/center (US) is similar, but is often used rather negatively and can refer to frequency as well as position:
I’ve been rushing around here, there and everywhere all day.
New vape stores are opening up right, left, and centre.
I’ll finish with two colourful trinomials which are well-known quotes in English. Lady Caroline Lamb described her former lover, Lord Byron as mad, bad, and dangerous to know, while the philosopher Thomas Hobbes famously said that life is nasty, brutish, and short.
I hope you will find these phrases useful and be able to use them here, there, and everywhere!